Page 67 of Gunnar

“Gun,” Damon exhales, his voice gentle, treading on eggshells. “That’s not going to help right now. You don’t need to see that.”

I shake my head with my eyes fixed on the screen, on the nightmare gallery that stretches before me. “I can’t just sit here,” I huff, already scrolling through the gallery of horrors. “I can’t just wait and hope and pray that Mattis finds something. I have to do something. Anything to find her. And if that means scrolling through this fucking filth for clues, I’m going to suffer through it.”

He reaches for my shoulder, “Gunnar⁠—”

I flinch, my head whipping toward him with a glare that stops him cold. “Don’t,” I warn, my voice barely above a whisper but carrying the weight of every violent thought I’ve been suppressing. “Don’t tell me what I need. What I need is her. What I need is to know she’s safe. What I need is to tear that bastard’s heart out of his chest with my bare hands. And since I can’t have any of that, I’ll take what I can get. I’ll take the pain. I’ll take the filth. I’ll take every violation he’s dreamed of committing against her and I’ll use it to fucking find him.”

Damon sighs, but he lets me be. He knows better than to argue while I’m like this. My rage and fear have merged into something that doesn’t respond to reason, and logic has no place here. something that operates on pure instinct and desperation. He retreats to his own laptop, leaving me to my self-imposed torture.

The images scroll past: Devyn at a coffee shop in Silver Lake, her head bent over a book, sunlight catching in her hair. Devyn leaving the gym on Melrose, workout clothes clinging to her body, her face flushed from the physical exertion. Devyn sleeping in a hotel room in Budapest three years ago. Each one is a violation, a theft, a moment of her life stolen and cataloged by a man she trusted. A man I trusted. The betrayal burns like acid, eating away at my composure and my very sense of self.

How did I miss it?

How did I look at Jake and not see the monster hiding in plain sight?

I force myself to look closer, to study the backgrounds, the angles, the locations. Maybe there’s a pattern. Maybe there’s something that will tell me where he took her. My stomach churns at the volatility, but I keep scrolling through the manipulated images. Now that he has her, he could be bringing any of these disturbing images to life.

I gag, turning my head to spit into the trash can beside me, my body rebelling against what I’m forcing it to witness. But I don’t stop scrolling. I can’t.

A small notification box in the corner of the screen lights up, alerting me to a new post, and my heart stops. For a moment, I can’t breathe. I can’t do anything but stare at those two words as terror crawls up my spine. A new post means he’s active, that he has something new to share.

A new post could mean…

My hands, normally steady, even in combat, shake as I move the mouse. The cursor hovers over the link, and I’m paralyzed by the possibilities.

What if it’s a photo of her hurt?

What if it’s a photo of her dead?

What if I’ve failed so completely that I’m about to see the end of everything I love?

I click, and the page loads agonizingly slowly. The white screen renders the image pixel by pixel, and relief washes over me like a tidal wave when the image finally loads. It’s Devyn, asleep on a wrought-iron framed bed. She’s dressed in the same clothes I left her in this morning. Her face is turned toward the camera, hair carefully arranged, and her expression is peaceful. She looks like a doll, posed and perfect, but she’s alive and unharmed. Or at least, she appears unharmed. I stare at the photo, my breath coming in ragged gasps, my vision blurring with tears I refuse to shed. Alive. She’s alive. The words repeat in my head like a mantra.

My gaze falls to the caption beneath the photo, and my relief is quickly replaced with rage.

She’s finally home. My love. My life. My forever.

He’s showing her off, displaying her like a trophy, proving to himself—to me and the other sick fucks that follow this site—that he has her, that she belongs to him now. I want to reach through the screen and make Jake understand, in the few minutes of consciousness I’ll allow him, exactly how wrong he is. She doesn’t belong to him. She never has. She never will.

I frantically dial Mattis, my hands still shaking so badly I can barely hold the phone. He answers on the first ring, his voice already alert. “Mattis!” I bark into the microphone, sounding manic. “There’s a new post. A photo. There’s a window, but I can’t quite make out what’s on the other side. Can you do some tech bullshit? Enhance it and figure out where they are?”

“Can I?” Mattis’s voice carries a familiar arrogance. It’s the confidence of a man who lives in a world of pixels and code, who believes that technology can solve any problem if you know the right algorithms. Or a backdoor to the NSA’s tech. “Please, that’s like asking if I can log into my email. Send me the link, I’ll have it analyzed before you can⁠—”

“Mattis!” I roar, my patience shattered, my control hanging by a single thread that’s fraying with every passing second. “Focus! This isn’t a game. This isn’t one of your hacking challenges. This is Devyn. And every second you spend being clever is a second longer that he has her alone.”

There’s a pause on the line, and when Mattis speaks again, the arrogance is gone, replaced by the gravity of the situation. “It’s already running,” he says quietly. “I’ve got the image from the site. I’m running it through enhancement software now. Give me a few minutes.”

A few minutes is an eternity. A lifetime. “Come on,” I mutter, my foot tapping against the floor as my entire body vibrates with impatience. “Come on, come on…”

Hawk and Jagger have stopped their work, their attention drawn by my urgency and the possibility of a breakthrough. They crowd around my laptop, staring at the photo of Devyn, their expressions grim but hopeful. Hawk’s hand comes to rest on my shoulder, heavy and grounding, and I don’t shrug it off. I need the anchor, a reminder that I’m not alone in this turmoil.

“She looks okay,” Jagger offers. “She looks unharmed.”

“We need to find her before she isn’t.”

“Got it,” Mattis says suddenly, his voice cutting through the tension. “The window… There’s a reflection in the glass, and I can enhance the edge. It looks like a building across the way. Brick, old, with a sign. The sign is partially obscured by the curtain, but I can make out letters. ‘M-A-R…’ something. Marquis? Market?”

“Marquis,” I repeat, my heart pounding over the first real lead we’ve had in hours. “A theater? A venue? A building sign across the front?”